Okay. So hello once more to the readers. It’s Alvania again. This blog is about day 5 of the internship whereby we visited the Mauritius University. There were many fascinating presentations, however, there was one in particular that caught my ears. Although many of us had a pretty good idea of what climate change and Blue economy was, we hadn’t really linked them together.
You see the earth is surrounded by the atmosphere to protect it from the harsh rays of the sun. However, over the years, we humans have produced too much greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide in particular. These greenhouse gases causes the atmosphere to be damaged and thus allowing some amount of the intensity of the sun’s rays to reach the earth causing the earth to heat up and what is known as global warming. As the deep ocean is dark, it absorbs heat like any other dark object and causes higher sea temperatures. Now as you may know, corals are both animals and plants. The hard part that we can see is the plant part. The thing that gives the coral its colour however, is the animal part. This is called zooxanthella. It gives corals its color as well as the protein it needs. These zooxanthella are very sensitive to heat, as this causes them to move out of the corals, leaving them white and thus causing what is known as bleached corals. This all links as when the corals become bleached and die out because lack of energy that the zooxanthella provides, the fish lose their habitat and also move out to find a new home and at times some even die trying. When such an incident happens, there is a decline in the fish’s biomass. This decline also means a decrease in a country’s ocean economy as there tourist would not want to visit an empty marine park, no fish in the sea for the fishermen to fish and so on. To prevent this there are only so much you can do to reduce your carbon footprints in the future of our kids and grandkids. Turn off the lights when not in use. Turn off appliances when not in use. Export and import less. Save water. Use less energy. Why all these you ask? Well, all this contributes to the already too much greenhouse gases. One more thing you can do is raising awareness and sharing tips, with your friends and family. Tell them about the detrimental effects of a few ‘innocent’ mistakes and what they can do to make it better. Furthermore, to have sustainability we must stick to our (Seychelles’) blue economy concept which values both taking and giving back to the ocean. As without the giving part, the ocean would only increase the country’s income on a short term basis. However, with the giving part, the ocean becomes sustainable. Meaning that we benefit from the ocean in every aspect for a number of generations. We gain food security, its beauty, jobs, tourism, income, to sum it up… the ocean’s all with it still being healthy.
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AuthorThe interns of the Prosperity & Environment: Promoting sustainable development opportunities for youth in the Blue Economy sector. Archives
January 2018
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